Vehicles were at work last week on BHP’s project to buttress the Solitude Tailings Facility south of Claypool and the Cobre Valley Regional Medical Center. The project’s goal is to improve the tailings’ resilience for stability during a 1-in-10,000-year seismic event. Though the facility is safe in current conditions, it could become unstable in the event of a catastrophic earthquake. The buttress, which is being constructed with native Gila conglomerate, is expected to provide more support and stability to the embankment slopes. The project is anticipated to use more than three million cubic yards of dirt and 150,000 yards of cubic rock armoring, sourced from a local quarry. Modeled on a successfully applied cover system approach BHP has used at the Miami Unit Tailings, San Manuel Tailings and San Manuel Heap Leach Facility, the project’s landform/cover system design was four to five years in the making.
